Chess.com Nations League: Essential Info
The Chess.com Nations League is a global online league open to federations. The league provides friendly online chess competition between players of all levels representing their national federations.
Eligibility
The Nations League is open to chess.com/clubs representing national federations. National federations represent both recognized countries as well as semi-autonomous states like Puerto Rico and England. Federal states and provinces such as Texas and Queensland are generally not eligible. Federation eligibility will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by league administration. Each national federation may be represented by a single club.
Accepted clubs may be asked to change their club names and descriptions to most clearly reflect the nation they represent and to inform members of their participation in the league.
If you are interested, please apply here:
Format
Initially, the Nations League will offer two separate formats: rapid chess and daily chess. Each format will have separate divisions, matches, and champions.
League Management
Chess.com will provide a comprehensive and public rules document prior to the season's start and will solicit feedback from participating admins.
Each season, the league will be lead by a commissioner appointed by Chess.com who will hold the authority to act as needed within the framework of the rules. The league will also have a five-member board of directors who will be empowered to advise the league, to make rulings on any disputes, and to make updates to the rules as needed to address any identified omissions or inconsistencies.
Notes
- National federations may set requirements for match and club participation based on timeout percentage, min # of games, and abidance by Chess.com's TOS. Any limiting of players based solely on skill level is strictly prohibited.
- Pairings will be issued by the league. All matches will be scheduled by negotiation among the league admins prior to the season's start.
- Admins will be responsible for scheduling matches on the server and for reporting match results.
- Players may only compete for one club in a season, and they must fly the flag of that nation.
- Teams must have one designated admin that represents the team in league discussions.
Chess.com Support
- Chess.com will assist with club invites to active users from the respective nation to help promote the official club.
- Federations will receive affiliate status.
- Chess.com will create personalized sign-up pages which will direct users to the club and earn affiliate revenue.
- Chess.com will provide streaming assets for team streamers and promotion for league streams.
- Chess.com will provide premium memberships as prizes for the best-performing individuals on the best-performing teams.
- Chess.com will provide graphical assets to national federations and content creators associated with national federations.
Rapid Chess
Rapid chess divisions of 10 clubs each will be created with national federations assigned to different divisions based on historic average match turnouts. Each division will play a ten-week round robin with the league setting pairings for each week. Dates and times of matches will be scheduled by agreement with individual admins prior to the beginning of the season. The league time control will be 25|10. Matches will be played on Chess.com using the club match tools. Players will be paired by Chess.com rapid rating, playing two games (once as White and once as Black with each color).
Teams will score two points for a match win. In the event of a match tie, teams will play a blitz match tiebreaker at a time control of 3|2.
The top six teams will advance to the divisional playoffs in which the top two seeds will receive byes for the first round of the playoffs. The top and bottom teams in each division will be advanced or relegated to the tangential divisions.
Daily Chess
Daily chess divisions of 10 national federations each will be created with clubs assigned to different divisions based on historic average match turnouts. Each division will play a round robin using a time control of 3 days per move with no vacation time. All matches will start concurrently at season's launch.
